Thanksgiving

It is the eve of Thanksgiving.  This holiday has always been celebrated in my family, but since my family is Canadian we also celebrated their thanksgiving too, which is in October.  When home with my folks these are a few of the things that I so enjoy about this holiday...
- The smell of the turkey roasting.
- A crazy flurry of activity the day before as we prepare the meal to be cooked the next day.
- The morning of, we all gather in our pjs and spend time laughing and talking over breakfast and coffee.
- Watching the parade on tv in the background.
- FOOD! (if you know me at all, then you would know that food is one of my favorite loves. It is a weakness of mine.)
- Family...growing up my family moved a lot, no better said, we moved all the time!! The only thing we had that was consistent in life was each other.  It has made us a close family and we cherish the time we get to spend together.

This Thanksgiving I am spending it with my husband's family in Kansas.  Their traditions are a little different than mine, but there will be a lot of love to go around.  Love and pickled hering. I could do without the pickled hering, but Jason's grandpa makes up for it by frying up some of his famous homemade potato chips.  Nothing like chips AND turkey on the same day! Some things really are just too good to be true.  (I did mention that I liked food, right?)

There are many thing that I am thankful for this year.  Most of those things are wrapped up in my husband and my son.  God has so richly blessed me and I am more than humbled by the way that the Lord has provided for me, and I don't mean just money wise.  There have been a lot of changes in my life in the past year. Questions that I was asking. Plans that needed to be made. Adjustments that were coming. Many things could have gone "wrong", but didn't. It has been a year where I have learned to walk a little closer to the Lord and trust Him in ways that I didn't before. If for no other reason, that is enough to be Thankful for. I've seen ways in which God's faithfulness and mercies are new every morning. There are still many thing that I am praying for and are heavy on my heart, but from living this past year I really KNOW that God will take care of those things in ways that are beyond my understanding.  God is working in the big and the small details of my life. He is working in yours too.  And so, I am thankful. Humbly thankful. I feel like this is a perfect time to reflect on God's goodness to me as I head into the Christmas season.  Holidays are great. I did mention the food, right? But holidays can get me off track of what their real purpose is.  I don't want to do that through this holiday season.

One of the top things that I am so thankful for tonight is that my little nephew made it safely into this world yesterday morning.  Mr. Henry Paul Smith was 7lbs. 3oz. and 21 inches long.  At 20 weeks the doctor thought he might have downs syndrome or heart/brain defects. We prayed and were trying not to worry since God knew what He was doing when He created this little boy. I am thrilled to say that Henry is perfectly healthy and doing famously.  Apparently he has a head full of blonde hair and looks strikingly like my niece, Isabella.  I haven't seen a picture of him yet, but I am in love with my little nephew already. Just another reason of how God is good.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.  Enjoy your turkey, family, nap, shopping, rest, and time of being thankful.